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Reviews For: LaCrosse Atomic Clock With Hands

Category: Ham Shack Clocks

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Review Summary For : LaCrosse Atomic Clock With Hands
Reviews: 5MSRP: 20 at Frys
Description:
Real clocks have hands
Product is in production
More Info: http://Various
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0053.8
W9MT Rating: 2016-10-26
Excellent clock but there's a less expensive better alternative Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Bought two of the 14", silver bordered, LaCrosse Atomic Clocks about 12 years ago on post-New Year's closeout at Kohl's for about $25 each.

My mother's is still in her kitchen. It is still fully functional.

Mine was mounted on a brick basement wall. My own house's basement gets quite chilly in the winter time (Chicago area). When changing out the AA cell (yearly), I'd often find mortar dust on top of the clock's movement housing (rear of clock). Nothing penetrated the works, but my clock's sweep 2nd hand did stop working about 2 years ago, after 10 years of flawless performance. Then it fully died a few weeks ago.

A search on Amazon yielded information that the same model clock was available from them for $28, with free Prime shipping.

Upon comparison shopping, I did find a comparable Lorell brand atomic clock that is 10" in diameter (same silver colored edging around the clock's face). The Lorell unit was only $18, shipped. It has a 2nd hand just like the LaCrosse.

Both clock brands sync to WWVB very well. The Lorell has the advantage of doing an automatic daylight savings time correction. You will still need to perform this ritual 2x per year with the LaCrosse.

Let's see the long term reliability of the Lorell, and I'll do a review on it then. For now, I like it better than the already good LaCrosse.

Just remember...my mom's 12 year old LaCrosse continues to reliably percolate along in her kitchen.
K2OWK Rating: 2013-08-04
Very large atomic clock Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Very large analog atomic clock. Easy to read dial and numbers. I have vision problems that's why I bought it. Its easy to set and of coarse keeps perfect time. The big problem is (to me anyway) is the inability to set and have the clock auto adjust to UST (GMT). I called the company and they said it is only settable to the four US time zones. This is not a major problem as it is easy to calculate UST, but it would sure be nice to be able to set it to world time. Lacrosse recommended one of their digital clocks which can be set to UST, but they are harder for me to see.
NT4I Rating: 2013-03-20
Lacking Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I purchased the clock brand new, installed a new battery and after many days...the clock failed to sync up with the radio signal. I had to manually set it and regularly adjust to get the correct time. A call to the factory service center was useless and ineffective. NO I am not in the basement were the signal can not be received, but on the third floor with the clock mounted to an outside wall. Save your money and buy a cheap Wal-Mart clock with hands.
It would be great if it worked right, but it just doesn't perform as advertised.
SAVE YOUR MONEY!!
NG9D Rating: 2011-05-30
Nice Clock Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I didn't read the instructions(!)and had tried to use a 1.2V Ni-MH rechargeable battery. When I replaced 1.2V Ni-MH rechargeable with 1.5V ALKALINE battery the clock immediately set itself to the correct time; hour, minute and second -- using a daytime signal from the VLF 60 kHz WWVB broadcast Fort Collins 54 kW transmitters and their top loaded 122m high monopole antennas w/ "helix house" tuners.

And yes, the instructions clearly say use an ALKALINE 1.5V battery. So note to Phil: I would appreciate it if you would remove my earlier review. This is a nice clock for the shack!

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Earlier 2-star review posted by NG9D on 2011-05-18

Yes, automatically sets itself to the second, but the hour hand is six hours off.

It is like the Chinese clock maker put the hand on 180^ from the correct position.

Easy for me to do the math, since it is a 12 hour format, right now it is 12:16, check that... 06:16.

Maybe will try one from Walmart.
NS6Y_ Rating: 2006-05-04
Nice functional clock Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Real clocks have hands. I had some old clock I got at goodwill and it worked OK but I lack the willpower to reset it for each change in Daylight Savings Time. So, I had a ham friend over and we talked for hours and then he looked at the clock and said, "IS THAT RIGHT?????" because he thought it was an hour later than it really was. I told him it's actually an hour earlier, and he was relieved. But then I was embarassed, so the next day I got this clock at fry's, the inimitable LaCrosse Atomic Clock With Hands. For 20 bucks. It's great, the only thing is, this last changeover it didn't change an hour for the daylight savings time. I finally gave up and put it on Colorado time. I'll change it back to California time the next change.

Nice and big and easy to see, I can even read the sucker with my bad eye. W00t!